


In Which There Is A Lack Of Coffee

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Bon Cop Bad Cop (2006)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone is stealing Tim Hortons trucks and two unlikely partners team up to find out who!</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which There Is A Lack Of Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta and translator Charcoal Feathers.
> 
> Written for moosesal

 

 

Martin Ward was having that kind of a morning. He'd been in a perfectly good mood upon waking up, but between leaving the house and getting to work (late), he'd been stuck in a traffic snarl that had been impressive even for rush hour in Toronto, had one of the lights on his dash start blinking angrily at him for no discernible reason, and had the local crazy homeless guy scream death threats at him as he walked into the office. Worst of all, he didn't even have his morning coffee--the Tim Hortons he always stopped by on his way to work was out, which he hadn't even known could happen. The poor girl behind the counter had explained that there had been issues with the delivery, in between apologies. She'd looked close to tears, which wasn't surprising, given the general mood of the customers denied their caffeine fix. There had been a moment where Martin had worried that he would have to break up a fight and haul a couple of businessmen down to the station with him, but it had all smoothed itself out without interference.

Now that he'd made it to work without further incident, Martin's only real goal was to get to his desk without running into his boss. A lecture on tardiness would not improve his morning. It seemed like things were finally going his way when he made it to his desk and hung up his jacket without incident, but before he even finished sitting down and turning on his computer monitor, the captain appeared on the horizon like a storm cloud headed his way. A particularly groggy storm cloud, Martin noted--the captain looked as awake as Martin felt.

"Ward! My office!" the captain snapped.

Martin blinked. Running late usually earned a brief reprimand, not a meeting. Rather than risk further wrath by questioning this, he nodded and followed the captain to his office.

"Sit," the captain ordered, doing so himself. Martin sat. The captain shuffled through a stack of files, grumbling to himself. Martin couldn't really make anything out, but he was sure he'd heard the word coffee at some point--unless he was just developing auditory hallucinations from caffeine withdrawal. It seemed entirely possible.

After a minute, the captain pulled out a fairly hefty file and sat it on the desk in front of him before turning to fix Martin with a serious look. "We have a provincial emergency on our hands, detective," he said.

Martin stared back at him, trying to remember if he'd heard anything on the morning news that would constitute a "provincial emergency". Unless the Leafs losing a fourth game in a row was suddenly a lot more alarming than usual, nothing came to mind.

"Sir?" he asked carefully, risking a glance out the door. Nothing in the station seemed unusual either, which struck him as strange.

"Someone is stealing our coffee," the captain announced. His expression remained serious, and Martin once again wondered about auditory hallucinations until the captain continued, "As well as our donuts, muffins, gourmet cookies, cinnamon buns, bagels, and Timbits."

"Stealing our...coffee?"

The captain nodded gravely. "There has been a recent series of truck hijackings focused on Tim Hortons trucks. The hijackings started late last month in small towns near the Quebec border," he said, handing Martin a map with a series of red dots on it. "Recently, the thieves have expanded their efforts, hitting larger cities and increasing the frequency of their attacks. The case was passed on to us as soon as it became obvious that it was the same MO. All the trucks have been stolen while the drivers have been on break, which means there have been no injuries-and no witnesses, unfortunately. We suspect that the thieves have someone working on the inside, possibly at the dispatch center, given their knowledge of routes and delivery times. They've also adjusted to work around the extra security that Tim Hortons has provided. There is a full list of incidents in the report, along with details about the security put in place after the first few attacks."

Martin took the folder, then looked up at the captain in puzzlement.

"Sir, I understand that this is a dire situation, but it seems that there is already an excellent team involved with the case. While I'm happy to assist them, I can't see what I could possibly add at this point in the investigation," he said. "It looks to me as if they're at the point where they'll be relying mostly on field officers."

The captain sighed.

"Apparently these thieves have been busier than we originally suspected. We recently discovered that a similar series of thefts has occurred in Quebec, starting around the same time. It is unlikely these two cases are unconnected," he said.

Realization dawned on Martin.

"Sir--"

"And as you already have a..." the captain paused, looking vaguely uncomfortable, "decent working relationship with the Sûreté du Québec, we felt it would be best to temporarily reassign you to the field for this case."

The captain looked at Martin with a slightly pleading expression. Martin sighed.

"Of course, sir," he said, after a long pause. "I understand that this is a very important case and that expedience is of the utmost importance."

The captain looked relieved. "Your assistance will be is greatly appreciated, Detective Ward. You will once again be working with Detective David Bouchard. His plane arrives at three--I expect you to be fully read up on the case by the time you pick him up. Please do try to avoid explosions and kidnapping this time around."

Martin nodded and stood up to leave, then paused when the captain said, "And Ward?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Send someone to find some coffee. I can't take any more of this turpentine."

Martin nodded again, stifling a yawn. He wondered if it would be against protocol to read over the case file in a café.

By the time he left for the airport, Martin had found one of the few still functioning Tim Hortons in Toronto and read the case file thoroughly. The team working on it had done excellent research, but hadn't managed to come up with much in the way of concrete evidence. There was a short list of suspected collaborators from the dispatch center, and lists of the various locations where the trucks had been stolen and recovered, but there were no suspects for the hijackings themselves. Had the stolen goods been high end electronics, there would have been something to work from--but Tim Hortons coffee was not likely to be of interest to organized crime, or even any of the smaller gangs that occasionally pulled off truck heists. It was truly a strange case.

Martin arrived at the airport early and was not surprised to discover that David's plane had been delayed in Montreal. Preparing for a long wait, Martin bought the day's Toronto Star and a mediocre, overpriced muffin and settled into the arrivals lounge to wait. Strangely enough, the Star had no mention of the mysterious Tim Hortons deficit in the city--given that he'd heard people talking about it in most of the places he'd been that day, he wondered how much of that was the media keeping quiet to avoid panic. 

The flight from Montreal was announced just after Martin had given in to boredom and started reading the fashion section. He folded up the paper with a sigh of relief and stood to keep an eye out for David. He spotted him immediately, mostly because David had somehow managed to hold up the rest of the line to chat up the pretty flight attendant. Martin sighed. Some things would likely never change.

Despite his misgivings about the case, he was actually starting to look forward to working on it. He enjoyed the desk work he had, and he didn't really miss the field--the unpredictable hours, the long stakeouts doing nothing, the short bursts of life-threatening danger--but it had added some excitement into his life that he occasionally missed. Not to the point where he wanted to get involved with another case like the tattoo killer, but it might be fun to work with David again.

They had actually managed to mostly keep in touch in the two years it had been since that case, through e-mails and the occasional phone call. Martin had been over for dinner both times he'd been in Montreal on business, mostly because Suzie had insisted upon it. There had been a moment or two when he'd thought that there might be something between the two of them, but if there had been, it had faded out with time and distance. David had only been in Toronto once, and then only for a day, much to Iris' disappointment. Martin wondered whether he should alert her to her crush's return to the city, or if it would just be easier to let sleeping dogs lie.

Watching David flirt with the flight attendant, Martin decided that what Iris didn't know wouldn't end with her yelling at him again.

"David!" he said, finally getting annoyed at the wait. David rolled his eyes at the attendant, waving a hand in Martin's direction. Martin sighed and sat back down, wondering whether it was worth it to try to read the paper again. Just as he picked it up, David gave the woman one last smile and headed over to Martin, holding a piece of paper in his hand and looking smug.

"I knew I could get her number," he said.

It was Martin's turn to roll his eyes, but he accepted David's hand up and wasn't surprised to find himself pulled into a quick hug.

"C'est bon a voir que ton travail de bureau n'a pas te completement ruinée," David said, grinning as he stepped back.

"It is good to see that you haven't killed yourself with your driving yet," Martin replied dryly. "Perhaps you will live to see a desk job after all."

"At which point j'vais mourir avec l'honneur."

Martin laughed. "Do you need to get luggage?" he asked, looking at the duffel bag slung over David's shoulder.

David shook his head. "I travel light."

They made small talk as they walked towards Martin's car. Martin asked about Gabrielle and got a glowing review of her latest dance recital--if David was to be believed, she not only starred in the show, but had also won a standing ovation and rose petals strewn at her feet by the crowd. He was willing to believe the first two, but the latter seemed somewhat unlikely. He didn't mention this to David, though.

"One of these days, you need a real car," David said upon reaching Martin's sedan. Martin ignored him and popped the trunk, keeping an eye on the dash to see if the mysterious light was back. He breathed a sigh of relief when it failed to appear. At least one part of his life was back in working order.

"So, tell me about ce cas," said David, falling into the passenger seat and looking at Martin curiously.

"Seatbelt," Martin replied automatically. David put it on with a look of disdain.

"What do you know?" Martin asked, starting the car and carefully backing out of his parking space.

"All LeBoeuf told me was that `quel qu'un est volée mon café! Bouchard, hunt these terrorists down! They are in Ontario!!'," David said, doing a passable impression of his captain.

Martin smiled. "Well, someone is taking coffee," he said, and briefed David on the case as they made their way out of Pearson's labyrinthine parking lot. By the time he was done, David was staring at him in disbelief as they drove through the warehouse-filled wasteland of north Toronto.

"Bâtards!" David said.

"Quite," Martin agreed.

"So where do we start?" David asked, looking at the file Martin had handed him earlier. "Le centre d'expédition?"

"No, the original team is handling that. I thought it best to check in with the foreman at the shipping center near here. Three of the trucks that have gone missing left from this location."

The foreman was a tall, middle-aged man who introduced himself as Larry. He had the look of someone under a great deal of stress, and stared at them with an air of desperation when they were settled into the uncomfortable chairs in his office.

"We've tried everything," he said before either Detective asked a question. "Our GPS systems get turned off as soon as the trucks go missing. The license plates get changed out. We've tried switching routes and delivery times, but it doesn't seem to help."

Martin nodded. That was the main reason they thought it likely that someone in the gang was working from the inside of the company.

"We've put extra men on as many of the trucks as we can, but we can't afford to do that for very long, and we don't have the manpower or the money to cover every delivery. We have our internal security team working with your team on finding the mole, but it's slow going." He paused and looked at them for a second, his hands gripping the arms of his chair a bit too tightly. "The drivers are starting to get scared that one of these times, someone's going to get hurt. There are whispers of a strike."

That was one of Martin's worries as well, and a concern echoed in the report as well. That the thieves had not yet shown any propensity towards violence was a good sign, but these things often escalated. He glanced at David, then looked back at the foreman, trying to project an air of reassuring confidence. He wasn't sure how successful he was, given that he really had no idea what he and David were supposed to accomplish on this case, but Larry did look slightly less worried.

He asked Larry some routine questions and ran over the three cases involving this location again, hoping to turn up some fresh lead or even an overlooked detail. Unfortunately, nothing was forthcoming. It seemed likely that nothing new would come up until the next attack, and even then, it might not be anything useful. Running into dead ends like this was incredibly frustrating.

Just when Martin was running out of questions to ask, Larry was called away to deal with some paperwork. Martin sat back in his chair with a sigh and looked at David.

"J'en n'est rien," he admitted.

"J'ai une idée," David said.

Martin straightened up and raised an eyebrow slightly.

"You won't like it," David warned, and then outlined his plan.

"You're damn right, I don't like it," Martin said when David had finished speaking.

"Vous avez une meilleure idée?," David asked. "Il bat se reposer et ne faire rien."

Martin sighed and stared at his notes, willing them to turn up something useful. They failed to comply. The longer he looked at them, the more he wanted to go along with David's idea, just to feel like he was getting somewhere. It wasn't like they hadn't survived crazier plans.

"Vous gagnez. Let's do it," he said finally. David made a noise of surprise.

"Votre capitaine will not like it," he pointed out.

Martin shrugged and pulled out his phone. "I think by this point he would agree to dance the Macarena in front of City Hall if it would get his coffee back," he said.

By the end of the phone call, Martin was starting to suspect that he hadn't exaggerated the captain's desperation. He'd gotten permission with a bare minimum of arguing, and had even managed to secure funding for supplies. David looked impressed.

Larry walked back into the room as David and Martin finished hashing out their plan. He looked at them in some confusion. Given that their conversation at that point consisted mainly of arguing, Martin was glad the man did not speak French.

"We have a plan," he said, and Larry's face lit up. Internally, Martin winced--he didn't want to ruin the man's hope by explaining the "plan", which was more like a bad idea hatched out of desperation. He didn't really have a choice, though.

"Do you need anything? I can get you whatever you need," the foreman said, practically vibrating with excitement.

Martin said, "We need a list of all the outgoing deliveries tonight, if that's possible."

"And we need to speak to the le centre d'expédition," David said, looking at Martin for a translation.

"The dispatch center," Martin said.

Larry nodded and disappeared again, returning a minute later with a clipboard.

"These are the scheduled departures, and this is the number for the dispatch center," he said, handing Martin the clipboard and a business card. Martin thanked him and conferred quickly with David, gesturing at the board emphatically. Larry stood by, watching them in apparent fascination.

Eventually, they reached an agreement, and Martin found himself explaining the plan like it was perfectly logical. Either he was more convincing than he thought, or he'd underestimated Larry's desperation, because the man agreed to it more quickly than the captain had.

"Well, nous sommes prêts," Martin said to David as they left the shipping centre. "If this all goes downhill, I am fully intended on claiming temporary insanity." David just laughed.

Late that night, Martin and David were settled in the back of a Tim Hortons truck, tucked between pallets of baking mixes and unidentifiable boxes.

"The things I am willing to do for coffee," Martin grumbled to himself, trying to find a comfortable position to sit in. David, who seemed to have an uncanny ability to lounge even in the most uncomfortable of situations, grinned at him.

"Ou est votre sens d'adventure, Martin?"

"If this truck doesn't get stolen--and it likely won't--then you are going to be the one to explain why we had to rent a car in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu," Martin replied. David just laughed.

A few minutes later, the walkie-talkie next to them crackled to life and the voice of Bill, the truck's driver, came through.

"We're about to get going, boys. Please keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle and hold on tight."

Martin sighed as Bill's laughter was cut off and the truck rumbled to life. He should have taken the morning and all its insanity as a sign to stay home, but no, he'd gone in and now he was stuck in the back of a Tim Hortons truck with David Bouchard, hoping that someone was going to steal it.

His life was so unlikely sometimes.

The first hour went fairly smoothly. Martin checked his email on his Blackberry and played a couple of games of solitaire before deciding he really ought to conserve the battery. David, improbably, appeared to have fallen asleep. The sound of the traffic outside was muffled into a strangely soothing hum, and Martin considered sleeping himself but decided it was unlikely that he could have gotten comfortable enough to do so. Beside which, one of them had to stay awake in the very unlikely case that the universe actually worked in their favour and the truck got stolen.

Martin has had some experience with waiting, an unavoidable part of the job, but by the third hour he was willing to admit that the boredom was winning. He wished he'd brought a book with him, except that their only source of light was a small battery-operated fake candle with a cheerful snowman next to it and it was certainly not bright enough to read by. David was still asleep, his jacket tucked under his head to make a pillow.

After a quick internal debate, Martin gave in and nudged David with his foot. David mumbled in his sleep a bit, but failed to wake up. Martin kicked him lightly in the shin, knowing it was petty, but not really caring.

"Quoi?" David said, his voice rough. Martin wasn't sure what to say, as "I'm bored" reminded him too much of Jonathan on long car rides, and there really wasn't any other explanation. Luckily, David didn't actually seem to require an answer, as he sat up, blinking slowly and stretching a bit.

"Qu'elle heure est 'il?" David asked.

Martin checked his watch. "Juste après quatre heures," he replied.

David nodded and yawned. "We should have brought cards," he said after a minute.

"That would have been une bonne idée," Martin replied.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes until Martin gave up on any pretense of being anything other than bored and suggested, "20 Questions?"

David looked at him for a second, then shrugged. "Why not?"

They were in the middle of a heated debate about whether Sonic the Hedgehog counted as a person or a thing when the walkie-talkie startle them with a burst of static. A second later, Bill said, "Bathroom break."

Martin and David looked at each other, instantly becoming more alert. Martin picked up the walkie-talkie, but before he could reply, he heard the slam of the cab door slamming shut and sighed.

"I'll go keep an look-out," David said, standing up and wincing at the crackling noise his back made when he stretched.

As David edged his way around the various pallets, the sound of the door slamming shut again echoed through the truck. David froze in place and looked at Martin, who checked the walkie-talkie and shook his head. It was possible that Bill had forgotten something or was just being slow to radio in, but still--he picked up his Blackberry and prepared to call in backup.

Before he could dial, though, the truck started up and jolted suddenly backwards, knocking Martin back and sending David tumbling to the floor. The rough treatment continued as the truck took a surprisingly sharp turn and jerked forward, picking up speed. Martin took a second to regain his breath and realized that his Blackberry had been sent skittering across the floor. He looked back to check on David, who waved at him to indicate that he was fine, then crawled forward towards his mobile phone.

He never made it to the Blackberry, as the truck took another sharp turn. This one shook the boxes on the pallet next to Martin loose, and he looked up just in time to see a cascade of coffee makers descending upon him. And that was all he knew for the next while.

"Martin! Martin! Elévation et éclat. Réveillez-vous!"

Martin opened his eyes, then winced as he became fully aware. He felt like he'd taken a tumble down the side of a cliff.

Above him, David's face came into focus, lit as if by a strange blue light. Martin blinked a few times, but the tint remained, and he realized that the only reason he could see anything was because David was using his cell phone as a light source.

"The snowman?" he asked. David blinked down at him, looking concerned, and Martin realized that he probably sounded delirious. "La bougie," he added.

"I can't find it, or your phone. Ou nos armes," David said.

"Shit," Martin said.

"Oui," David agreed.

Martin sat up carefully, hissing with each bruise discovered. "How long was I out?" he asked once he'd managed to lean against an intact pallet. What he could see of the back of the truck looked a bit like a tornado had hit it. The thieves obviously cared more about getting away than keeping the goods intact.

"J'ne sais pas," David admitted. "J'étais aussi sans connaissance." He brushed his fingers against the back of his head. "I got thrown into a corner."

Martin couldn't decide whether that was better or worse than concussion by coffee makers.

"Nous avons un autre problème," David said. He held his phone out to Martin, who took it and squinted at the display.

"We're out of service range?" he asked. David nodded.

"That means we're either way up north..."

"Or in the States," David finished.

They looked at each other.

"Merde," David swore.

"Du Tabernac," Martin added.

Checking the time revealed that they couldn't have possibly made it far enough north to lose the signal, which meant that they were likely in the States.

"New York or Michigan," Martin guessed. David nodded.

They spent a few minutes trying to sift through the debris around them, sneezing occasionally as loose baking mix floated through the air around them, but gave up on it when the truck's movement just shifted everything around more.

Martin collapsed back against the pallet he'd originally sat against and David did the same.

"No service means we can't call for backup," Martin said. David nodded. Martin sighed.

A few minutes later, the truck slowed, then took a turn. Both men tensed up and looked at each other. The truck slowed further and then, miraculously, came to a stop.

"Peut-être les voleurs are taking a bathroom break?" David suggested.

"They could be unloading the truck," Martin pointed out. He looked around, hoping to see one of their guns, but all he could see was a pile of packages of coffee, and--

"The coffee makers," he said. David looked up. "We could use them as weapons."

David gave them an appraising look, then shrugged. "C'est possible."

They each grabbed a coffee maker and made their way to the back of the truck. Luckily, most of the pallets at the back were intact, and they found suitable hiding places fairly easily.

Just when Martin was starting to think that David had been right and it was just a bathroom break, the back of the truck opened and a man stepped through. He didn't look like the kind of man to pull off a truck heist--he was short and balding, and reminded him of Jonathan's fourth grade teacher, Mr. Donovan. He was alone.

Martin looked at David, then back at the truck thief, who was walking slowly into the truck's interior. When the man was right between them, David nodded at Martin.

They leapt forward, brandishing the coffee makers. The man barely had time to react before he was hit soundly on the head and crumpled forward with a groan. Martin checked his pulse while David kept an eye out for anyone who might have been alerted by the noise.

"He's alive," Martin said. He pulled the man back behind the pallets and handcuffed him.

Outside, a car drove by, and then a voice called out, "Greg, hurry the fuck up."

David slipped back behind the pallet and Martin once again hefted his coffee maker. With luck, the other man would step into the trap as well--Martin did not want to go out after him armed only with a fairly sturdy kitchen appliance. 

Amazingly, things actually worked out, and the second man went down just as easily as Greg had. He, too, was not a typical thief--younger than Greg, but skinny and awkward-looking behind his thick glasses.

"C'est impossible que c'est deux débiles pourrait fair tout ca," David said, nudging the second one with his boot. Martin was inclined to agree.

No one else came into the truck, so after a few minutes, David and Martin emerged cautiously, still holding the coffee makers in case they were needed. It was just starting to get light out, and thus hard to tell where they were, but what was lit by the street lamps looked like a rest stop. There was another truck parked next to them, with Michigan plates on it. Martin gestured to it, and they carefully circled around it. The cab was empty.

"I think that's it," Martin said after doing a quick look around the rest of the area. David nodded.

"We should call this in," he said.

Martin sighed. "I'll go see if I can find my Blackberry," he said. "We should move them."

They hauled the two thieves out of the first truck and into the back of the second, then shut the door as an added precaution. Digging through the debris was a bit easier this time, and actually wielded their guns and, strangely, the snowman candle.

"It still works," David said, sounding surprised. Indeed, the little light turned on easily, and Martin was too exhausted to feel stupid using it as a flashlight.

His Blackberry was not so lucky. It had been crushed by one of the falling coffee makers, and just made sad fizzing noises when he tried to use it.

Martin sighed. He and David were sitting on the curb behind the trucks. Martin was still holding the fake candle in one hand and his Blackberry in the other, hoping it would start to work again but knowing that wasn't likely.

"I'll go find a pay phone," he said finally.

"Moi, j'observez les contrebandiers," David replied. Martin laughed tiredly. If someone had told him the day before that he'd be stranded in the States with a pair of coffee smugglers, he'd have assumed they were crazy.

He stood up and winced as his muscles complained. This was the most activity he'd put them through since starting his desk job. As he turned towards the building he could see in the distance, flashing lights and sirens filled the early morning. He froze in place.

"Stand up and put your hands above your heads," came a voice through a loudspeaker. Martin squinted into the bright lights and saw two cop cars facing them. He did as he was told.

"We're--" he started, but the man with the bullhorn cut him off.

"We received reports of an assault taking place here," he said. "Please place any weapons you may have on the ground and kick them towards us."

"We're--"

"NOW."

Martin sighed.

"My name is Martin Ward, and I am a detective with the Ontario Provincial Police!" he finally managed to say. The man with the bullhorn was silent for a second. Martin heard the sounds of a quick conversation, then an officer walked towards him.

"No sudden moves," the man with the bullhorn said.

Martin sighed and stayed still, hands above his head. He only hoped David was doing the same behind him. The officer approached him and gave him a wary look.

"My badge is in my inside jacket pocket," Martin said.

The man reached in and pulled it out, looking it over carefully before calling out, "He's telling the truth."

"My companion is Detective David Bouchard of the Sûreté du Québec--the Quebec provincial police," he added quickly. He turned to look at David, who waved one of his hands slightly.

The officer checked on David's badge as well before letting them approach the cars.

"So what in hell are you two doing out here?" the man with the bullhorn asked.

David looked at Martin.

"It's a long story," Martin said. "You see, someone was stealing our coffee..." 

 


End file.
